He didn’t like the paintings that they put out in the gallery but the critics loved them so he supposed it was all right with him. It entitled him to be smug, even though he kept chasing that perfect painting. Of course, the pursuit is the only thing that mattered; it kept him up at night. ‘Why are you so stupid? Just make me already!’ The painting would say.

It was probably for the best that the gallery had his paintings because he tended to burn them when they took up too much room in his small apartment. The past doesn’t matter. Only the next painting is. So all in all, he didn’t really have a reason to be as upset with the woman:

“This painting is awful,” she said. “It’s decadent.”  

“What is decadent is your tits!” the painter cried out.

The woman put her hand over her chest.

“Put on something decent or I’ll coat that painting with your makeup.”

The woman and her husband took flight and the painter glared after them. The proprietor of the gallery shook his head. “That was unnecessary.”

“People are unnecessary,” the painter growled.

He had another glass of wine then left. He lived in a free country, supposedly, but it was borderline fascist to him. “Their morals make me puke,” he muttered. He went home and bolted the door behind him and stared at a white canvas, trying to picture the perfect painting, at least the beginning of it.

The gallery kept asking for his paintings and he kept sending them, going to their events less and less. The only thing that drew him was the free drinks and the opportunity to yell at his fans. Other than that, he could do without it. A few more outbursts like that and they might stop asking for his paintings altogether, he thought.

© Christopher Stamfors